Advanced Gmail Features

Beyond the Basics: Gmail Tips and Tricks

This document covers some of Gmail's most powerful advanced features to improve your email workflow. These 10 tips and tricks include how to undo sent emails quickly, change the composition window position, set up mail delegation, and more!

1. Undo Send

This feature gives you a “grace period” of 5-30 seconds before an email finally, really leaves your email account. When you click send, a yellow-highlighted message appears above the inbox for 5-30 seconds (you define the length), allowing you to “Undo” your sending of a message. Just click Undo to bring the message back into Compose mode. You can re-edit, add the forgotten attachment, or keep it in your Drafts folder.

To enable Undo Send or change the settings, go to the Gear symbol, and choose Settings. Under the General tab you will find the menu below:

Click to Enable Undo Send and define the cancellation period. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen.

2. Add to calendar

If Gmail recognizes text in the body of a message as a date/time, it will underline the text. This underline indicates that you can add an event to your calendar directly from that email. Just hover over the date/time text and choose Add to Calendar (see below for an example). The text of the email will appear in the description of the event.

Even if there is no “live” Add to Calendar option you can go to the More menu and select Create Event. You will need to select the date and time of the event. In the body of the event you’ll find a link to the email with all of the details.

3. Preview pane

Available in Google Labs, Preview Pane allows you to preview a selected message under the inbox.

1. Go to the Gear icon; choose Settings.

2. Go to the Labs tab.

3. Find and enable the Preview Pane feature and Save settings.

You can also choose to have a “vertical split” rather than the horizontal split shown above. Click in the box to the right of the gear to show your pane view options.

Gmail Offline lets you work on your email offline (messages you send are sent when you reconnect to a network).

Boomerang allows you to schedule messages to be sent or returned at a later date. Write a message now, send it whenever, even if you're not online. Track messages to make sure you hear back, and schedule reminders right inside Gmail™

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